


i'm gonna fall apart with you

by kiranerys42



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Halloween, Haunted Houses, M/M, Podfic Welcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 17:36:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21257069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiranerys42/pseuds/kiranerys42
Summary: Patrick and David go to the Elmdale Haunted Harvest Festival. David does not enjoy the "haunted" part.





	i'm gonna fall apart with you

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [RhetoricalQuestions](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RhetoricalQuestions/pseuds/RhetoricalQuestions) in the [Schittscreekspookyseason](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Schittscreekspookyseason) collection. 

> **Prompt:** Elmdale has a new Scary House this Halloween. David reluctantly agrees to go with a very enthusiastic Patrick (it's still early into their relationship). The jump scares bring David closer to Patrick, which is exactly what Patrick hoped for!
> 
> Thank you to RhetoricalQuestions for the prompt! I feel like I strayed a bit from the specifics of the prompt, but hopefully I kept close enough to the spirit of it.
> 
> Thank you to didipickles for a last-minute beta/proofread!
> 
> The title is from the Noah Reid song "False Alarms," because titles are a scam.

“I still can’t believe you convinced me to come to this thing,” David muttered.

“Come on, David, it’s Elmdale’s annual Haunted Harvest Festival! I’m sure we can find something fun to do,” Patrick said.

David carefully surveyed his surroundings. There were vendors selling every kind of fried food imaginable; rigged carnival games; a few sketchy carnival rides, including a small ferris wheel that looked like it might fall over at any moment; and off in the distance, what appeared to be a maze constructed from bales of hay. The crowd was mostly families with small children, but there were also some bored-looking teenagers who David suspected were trying to scope out a place secluded enough to get high, or make out, or do whatever else it was teenagers in Elmdale liked to do. And as if all that wasn’t bad enough, the festival had been set up in the empty field next to the Elmdale Community Center, and the dirty, dusty ground was wreaking havoc on David’s Rick Owens high-tops.

The whole situation was horrifying. Admittedly, some of it was probably  _ supposed _ to be horrifying, but in a fun way. David didn’t really understand, because he didn’t think being horrified was fun at all.

“Mmkay, well, what sorts of  _ fun _ things would you like to do?” David crossed his arms and stared expectantly at Patrick.

Patrick raised an eyebrow and reached out to touch David’s arm—or, no, he was actually taking David’s hand, and that meant David had to uncross his arms, because apparently holding hands at the harvest festival was the kind of thing Patrick wanted to do. Well, of course it was, it made sense; they were— _ boyfriends _ , because that was a word they were using now. And boyfriends do things like go to the harvest festival together. And hold each other’s hands.

“We could explore that hay maze,” Patrick suggested. 

“I can probably see over the top.”

“Okay, we could—um—there’s the ferris wheel.”

“Absolutely not. Ever since that parasailing incident in the Seychelles, I don’t do heights.” 

“Alright. What about…” Patrick looked around desperately. “There!” Patrick pointed at a small, hand-painted sign that read “Haunted House,” with an arrow pointing towards the community center. “That sounds like fun.”

“Okay, it’s just, I went to a haunted house once when I lived in New York—well, except it was more of a supernatural sensory deprivation experience—it wasn’t fun at all.”

“David, this is a family-friendly festival, I’m sure the haunted house won’t be that bad.”

David looked at Patrick’s hopeful face, then looked down at their interlaced fingers. He thought about just how far outside his comfort zone he’d be willing to go for Patrick. It was… kind of horrifying, actually, the things David was willing to do for him. But in a good way.

The corner of David’s mouth twisted upwards. “Okay, you lead the way.”

Once they’d paid the exorbitant entrance fee of ten dollars per person, they had to stand and listen to a shockingly cheerful goth girl who couldn’t have been older than fifteen give a carefully rehearsed speech which contained phrases like “spooky situation” and “frightful funk” and “creepy corridor.” David started to tune her out around the time she got to the part about the “ghoulish gallery.” He almost didn’t notice when she was done; Patrick had to put a hand on his back to get his attention. When they finally stepped through the door into the community center, they were immediately plunged into total darkness.

“Off to a good start,” David said, trying to sound braver than he felt. 

“It’s just dark, David,” Patrick said reassuringly. “Here—” David felt Patrick take his hand again, gripping tightly. Then Patrick leaned in and kissed him on the cheek, and whispered in his ear, “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.”

“I don’t think I need someone to protect me from—um—” David realized he had no idea what would actually be in a haunted house in the Elmdale Community Center. Maybe he should’ve listened to the cheerful goth girl after all. “From the dark.”

“Well, just in case, let’s stay close.”

Now that David’s eyes had adjusted, he realized it wasn’t actually pitch black. They were in a narrow hallway, and off to their right was a doorway which had been covered with a fringed curtain. The eerie glow of a black light was seeping through the edges and the gaps in the fringe.

David took a deep breath and followed Patrick through the curtain.

On the other side was a small room crammed full of the oldest, grimiest, and kitschiest Halloween decorations David had ever seen. There were anatomically incorrect skeletons, plastic headstones with puns to rival Ted's, and fake spiderwebs with even more obviously fake spiders. Inexplicably, there was also a creepy clown mask hanging on the wall, even though it didn’t fit with the graveyard aesthetic at all. The centerpiece of the display was a nearly life-size coffin leaning upright against the wall. Inside the coffin was a mannequin with a face that fell firmly in the middle of the uncanny valley. It was wearing a dress that looked like it might have been purchased at the Blouse Barn several decades ago, and a long black wig that looked even more ancient.

The room was lit only by black light, which meant that random parts of the room were glowing brightly—the clown mask, the mannequin, and Patrick’s white t-shirt peeking out around the neck of his blue sweater. A few grimy spots on the wood floor were also glowing, which was too disgusting for David to even begin to contemplate.

Nothing about it should have been scary. But David was absolutely terrified.

“See? This isn’t so bad,” Patrick said. He didn’t sound like he believed it.

“Let’s just…keep going. I want to get this over with.” David leaned in close and pushed gently on Patrick’s shoulder to urge him onward, but he wasn’t actually sure which way they were supposed to go. He couldn’t see a way out aside from the curtain they’d just entered through, but he suspected that immediately turning around and exiting the same way you came in wasn’t what you were supposed to do in a haunted house.

Patrick squeezed David’s hand and walked towards the far end of the room, to the left of the mannequin in the coffin. As they drew closer, David saw there was another doorway covered by a fringed curtain.

The moment they walked through the curtain, David heard the whirr of a fog machine, and quickly the air was thick with fog. Then three things happened all at once: there was a loud noise, kind of like a  _ screech _ and a  _ bang _ at the same time; there was a flash of bright light; and a  _ real live person _ wearing a  _ very creepy mask _ jumped out in front of them.

David didn’t scream, because David was not a person who screamed. Even during sex, when he could sometimes be quite loud—he’d whine, and moan, and mutter obscenities, and occasionally he’d even been known to yell or shout. But David never screamed. Admittedly, David wasn’t entirely sure  _ what _ to call the sudden high-pitched sound that had left his mouth. He just knew it wasn’t a scream, because screaming was incorrect.

When David came back to his senses, he realized he was holding Patrick uncomfortably tight, with his face buried in Patrick’s shoulder. He also realized he was shaking.

“Sorry,” David mumbled into Patrick’s shoulder. He thought about pulling away, but Patrick was warm, and sturdy, and comfortable, and with his face buried in Patrick’s shoulder like this, David couldn’t see anything. Of course, with the way the bright flash of light had blinded him, David probably wouldn’t be able to see anything even if he did pull away. But this way, he could pretend that his inability to see anything was a conscious choice, and not something beyond his control.

“It’s alright.” Patrick tried to turn to face David, but David stopped him, wrapping his arms around Patrick from behind and burying his face deeper into Patrick’s shoulder. “Are you okay?” Patrick asked tentatively as he reached a hand back to stroke David’s hair.

“Not really,” David admitted. “I didn’t know there would be real people in here.”

“David, did you even listen to the warning speech?”

“You can’t expect me to listen that closely to someone who says more puns than Ted.”

“Alright, well, now you know. There are real people in the haunted house.”

David rubbed his hands up and down Patrick’s sides and nuzzled his shoulder. Patrick smelled like cheap laundry detergent and even cheaper aftershave, and David couldn’t believe how much he enjoyed the smell. “Do you think, um… do you think there will be more? More people, I mean?”

Patrick chuckled. “I think so, David. Jump scares are… kind of the point, here.”

“Okay. I can’t… I can’t do this. I know I agreed to it. And then I didn’t listen to the goth girl like I should have, so I didn’t know there would be  _ real people _ in here—” David cut off as he realized the implication of there being  _ real people _ in the haunted house; that meant there were other people there with them  _ right now _ . People who were listening to him and Patrick have this conversation, or— _ watching _ them; watching as David, a fully grown man and ostensibly mature adult, lost his fucking mind over a stupid haunted house. 

David could feel a lump rising in his throat. If he wasn’t careful, the haunted house people would see him cry. Fuck, if he wasn’t careful,  _ Patrick _ would see him cry. Patrick had seen David cry before, of course; they’d watched Steel Magnolias together. And Sleepless in Seattle, and Up, and—well, David cried at most movies. But that was different. Crying at movies was relatively normal. Crying because your boyfriend took you to a haunted house was not normal.

“I’m sorry.” David tried to keep his voice from wavering. 

“Okay, well, I’m pretty sure the quickest way out at this point is to just keep going. Can you hang in there to the end?” 

“Can I stay like this?” David asked, rubbing his face against Patrick’s shoulder and gripping his waist tightly.

“Of course.” Patrick grabbed David’s hand and gave it a squeeze.

“Good. Let’s get this over with.”

David kept his arms tight around Patrick, his face firmly pressed to Patrick’s shoulder, and his eyes squeezed shut. It was hard to walk while staying so close to Patrick, and David could tell it was slowing them down, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He wasn’t sure how long they walked through the haunted house like that; it felt like an eternity, but realistically it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. Of course, closing his eyes didn’t make David completely immune to the haunted house experience. He could still hear the ambient creepy sounds and occasional jump scares. He could still smell the musty old decorations and the chemical scent of the fog machine. He could even still see a couple bright flashes of light through his eyelids. But each time something startled him, he just pulled Patrick closer, and it made it a little more bearable.

“Alright, I think this is the exit,” Patrick said. 

“You  _ think _ this is the exit? Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“But how do you know?”

Patrick laughed. “David, can you open your eyes?”

David lifted his head off Patrick’s shoulder and cautiously opened his eyes. He was greeted by the sight of a door—a real door this time, not one of those doorways with a fringed curtain—and above the door, an “Exit” sign, glowing red like a beacon.

David squinted as they stepped outside into the bright sunlight. Patrick immediately turned to look at David, and took his face in his hands. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine.” David hoped that his eyes weren’t too red from when he’d nearly cried earlier, because Patrick was looking right at him. He could probably see how upset David felt. He could probably tell just by looking at him that David was, in fact,  _ not _ fine; and at any moment now, Patrick was probably going to ask David what his problem was, and tell him to stop being so dramatic, and then David really  _ would _ cry, and Patrick would leave him here by himself so he could go off and have fun like a normal person, doing whatever it is that normal people do at the Elmdale Haunted Harvest Festival.

“Alright.” Patrick nodded curtly, then he leaned in and kissed David. It was a gentle, chaste kiss, but it lingered; longer than David would have expected a kiss to linger in broad daylight when surrounded by screaming children.

“Hey,” Patrick said as he pulled away from the kiss. “I’m sorry I suggested we do the haunted house. It was a terrible idea.”

“It really was,” David agreed, his voice shaking a bit with what he hoped passed as laughter.

“Maybe you should get to choose the next activity, since my choice didn’t work out so well.”

“Um. How about food?”

“I don’t know, David,” Patrick teased. “Some of those vendors look pretty scary.”

“Mmhm, I know you’re joking, but from what I saw earlier, I’m actually concerned about getting food poisoning from a few of them?”

“Well, then, I’ll let you choose where we eat.”

David led them directly to the funnel cake booth.

“What toppings do you like?” Patrick asked. “Because I prefer plain, but strawberry’s alright too, if you prefer that.”

“So, the way you asked that question implies that you think we’ll be  _ sharing _ a funnel cake, which is deeply concerning,” David said. “You can get whatever you want on  _ your _ funnel cake.  _ Mine _ will have chocolate and strawberries on it.”

“Oh, okay. My mistake.” Patrick wrapped his arms around David and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Look, they have deep fried Oreos, too. Maybe I’ll get those on top of my funnel cake.”

“That is—that’s disgusting, Patrick.”

“But you said I could get anything I want!” Patrick pouted. “Maybe I want deep fried oreos on my funnel cake. And—” Patrick turned to read the sign. “Marshmallow sauce and caramel sauce, and all three fruit flavors; apple, strawberry,  _ and _ cherry.”

“Oh my god.”

“But definitely no chocolate.”

“Oh my  _ god _ .”

Patrick didn’t end up getting a funnel cake at all; instead he got a corn dog. David didn’t let Patrick eat any of his funnel cake, because if Patrick didn’t want funnel cake, that was his choice to make. He did steal a bite of Patrick’s corn dog, though, because Patrick didn’t seem to mind sharing.

After eating, David felt a lot better. Not great; he was still a little unnerved, but he was also full of sugar and fried dough, and he’d gotten to watch Patrick lick mustard off his fingers, which should have been disgusting but instead was shockingly attractive. He thought about apologizing for freaking out earlier, except he wasn’t really sorry, just embarrassed, and talking about it sounded like it would fill him with more shame.

“Listen, David, I—” Patrick began. He had that  _ look _ on his face, the look he got before saying something serious. David was worried, Patrick’s occasional moments of unfiltered sincerity made him deeply uncomfortable. Not that it was bad, it was just—a lot. “I really am sorry,” Patrick continued, “that I made you go through that haunted house. I can tell it was very upsetting for you.”

“It’s—I mean...” David didn’t want to lie; it  _ had _ been really upsetting. “Let’s just—not talk about it any more, okay?”

“I know you were scared, though,” Patrick said. “I don’t like seeing you in distress like that.” Patrick leaned in close and continued quietly, as if he were sharing a secret. “I liked having you close to me, though. That was pretty nice.” Patrick’s breath smelled like mustard, and it should have been gross, but it  _ really _ wasn’t. 

“I guess—um—that part was okay.” David felt flustered. Patrick was looking at him like he wanted to—like he was thinking about—well, like he was thinking about things that were not at all appropriate to think about at the Elmdale Haunted Harvest Festival. So David leaned in closer, too, anticipating a kiss. But Patrick pulled away at the last second.

“Anyway.” Patrick picked up their trash and tossed it in a nearby trash bin. “We can leave now, if you want.”

“Um. We don’t—we can stay. It’s fine.”

“Do  _ you _ want to stay?”

David blinked. “I think I do.”

“Let’s try the hay maze?” Patrick suggested.

It turned out David had been right earlier; he could see over the top of the maze, but just barely. So he hid his face in Patrick’s shoulder, and let him lead the way.


End file.
